Gastrointestinal helminths of pipistrelle bats (Pipistrellus pipistrellus/Pipistrellus pygmaeus) (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae) of England ...

• Main Authors: Lord, Jennifer S., Parker, Steve, Parker, Fiona, Brooks, Darren R.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Zenodo 2012
• Subjects: Biodiversity; Mammalia; Chiroptera; Chordata; Animalia; bats; bat; Pipistrellus pipistrellus
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13448220; https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.13448220

(Uploaded by Plazi for the Bat Literature Project) Although bats are one of the most successful and diverse of mammalian orders, studies that focus upon bat endoparasites are limited. To further knowledge of bat parasitology, pipistrelle bats (Pipistrellus pipistrellus and P. pygmaeus) were acquired from across the Greater Manchester and Lancashire region of England and examined for gastrointestinal helminths using morphological and molecular analyses†. Sixty-eight of 90 adult/juvenile bats (76% prevalence) were infected with at least 1 species of helminth and mean helminth abundance was 48·2 (+ / − 7·0). All helminths were digenean trematodes and the following species were identified in 51 P. pipistrellus specimens (prevalence in parentheses): Lecithodendrium linstowi (80·4%), L. spathulatum (19·6%), Prosthodendrium sp. (35·3%), Plagiorchis koreanus (29·4%) and Pycnoporus heteroporus (9·8%). Statistical analyses, incorporating multifactorial models, showed that male bats exhibited a significantly more ...